Every Thursday, as part of my personal “enriched environment” initiative, I post a piece of art, usually from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which recently released online some 400,000 high-resolution images of its collection. I won’t name the piece or the artist, but instead invite you to study the image and write a comment about what you see or what it makes you think of. All images will have a sun (or sunlight) in them somewhere.
So study the picture, and leave your reflections below!
Note: To examine the picture in full size, click on the image, then click again on the words “full resolution.”
I can’t tell for sure because the picture doesn’t blow up that big. But, it seems that all the humans are in the shade under the bridge. Message? Do some of these pictures actually have messages? like last weeks’ photo of the desserted outdoor movie theater in the dessert out west?
OK, once again like last week’s photo, the sun is obviously central to the picture (the sun likght) but the sun itself is off screen to the left.
btw I enjoy this part of your blogging
I like how the artist renders the surface of the water. It starts off grayish on the far left under the bridge, then lightens up to horizontal splotches that are grayish, greenish, blueish. On the far right blue takes over almost completely, aided by white.
The green door in the center of the picture is interesting to me. Maybe it is not a door but a window. And I believe that it is not the exact center of the picture but instead, the actual center itself is just to the left of the Green Door, maybe it’s the grey horizontal rectangle under the awning. that looks like the very center to me. is that what you could say is the ” dead ” center? in a painting that seems to be all about sunlight and about people escaping the sun’s heat by hiding in the bridges’ shadows, the ” dead ” center is a grey rectangle.
Thank you !!!
If you compare the left half of the painting to the right half you will see that the left half is congested. Lots of clouds in the sky and murky water and all the business with the bridge. The right half has less going on, and no people
Peaceful
It makes me want to jump off the bridge and swim to the shore and do it again. Reminds me of my summers in high school .
I like a picture with blue sky, white clouds, and reflections on the water. I think about my island where I grew up and how much I miss it. Please find more pictures like these.
the summer’s more then half over and I haven’t gone swimming yet….I barely make it out of the house now
This is such an analytical group.
The water is a lighter blue than the sky. I don’t get it.
The picture makes me want to go to a restaurant in the European countryside — practically almost any country will do — and eat local cuisine and drink good wine. And enjoy the sun and look at the water. That’s life.
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Makes me think of olden simpler times when things were generally better. Less pressure and less things going wrong.
The Light is not too strong and it makes me think it’s late summer like in August which is sad to my way of thinking . I Think those building s must be cold dark and dank in the dead of Winter. .
I can see from all the Thursday art that you- well, you like art. I agree that it’s a good thing to step out from one’s normal state of turmoil and gaze in wonder at some external, created work of beauty.
Yes this looks peaceful and lazy but you have to realize that not all is safe at any moment in History. What is behind that green door, maybe an old woman sick with both tuberculosis and dementia, or a rumplestilstskin – type troll who sells poisoned apples in exchange for your first born . and what about the bridge, almost anything could come over that bucolic bridge and bring disease or terror into the village ——- maybe army tanks followed by empty trucks ready to be loaded up with jews, gypsies, the sick and elderly, the mentaly deranged, the serbs, the bosnians, the polish, the writers and intellectuals who are then all trucked off into the unknown and never come back and today tourists from north America stand on the banks of the river or stare at this painting in a museum and sigh that it’s a work of art when really its a work of unwitting forgetfulness ………….. isn’t that a major problem with many pictures and paintings ? ? ? ?
Sorry I got carried away
may be just like the villagers in this picture/ painting
I wish there was more to see (!)
On the other hand may be the rivers’ pollution is clearing up and a kind of minnow has returned to the water which hasn’t been seen in these parts for 50 years, that could happen too
OMG
Thank you for the opportunity to really study a painting and think about it! The other comments are also fascinating.
What I find interesting is that on such a sunny day, most of the clouds are not white but gray. And another detail is that the two trees in the middle are both pushing up into clouds, but both clouds are backing off and blue sky separates the trees from the clouds in both cases. I wonder where this picture was painted and when. And what else did the artist paint, and what is s/he famous for.
And for some reason the picture makes me hungry for strawberries and clotted cream.